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Volume14/Number 10/October 1983
Round-the-World News
31 October to Timothy Cantell, RSA, John Adam Street, Adelphi, London WC2N 6EZ, UK.
Yugoslavia
France
The master of the Liberian tanker Seaborne has been accused by the Yugoslav authorities of polluting the sea near the Adriatic coastal resort of Sutomore by discharging tank washings which created a 2.6 km 2 slick of oil. The vessel's master has denied responsibility for the incident but the Yugoslav authorities are testing oil samples taken from the slick and will be submitting a claim against the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund seeking compensation for clean-up costs and damage caused by the oil discharge.
A French potash firm is defying a court ruling by continuing to dump waste salt into the Rhine at more than double the recommended rate. A Strasbourg court decided that Alsatian Potash Mines had been breaking international law for three years, after a lengthy legal battle between the Government-owned company and ten Dutch towns affected by the salt further down the Rhine. But the firm, which is dumping chloride at the rate of 130 kg s- i into the river, compared to 60 kg s-1 recommended by an international commission, has assured its 5800 workers that it will not cut back on production and now plans to take its case further.
USSR A plan has been produced to initiate a major clean-up of the Ukranian Dnieper River basin, including phosphorus removal from industrial effluents, the modernization of 1300 industrial wastewater treatment plants, and reduction of farming effluents. The construction of a new dam upstream of Kiev has exacerbated problems downstream, for as a result of a lower river current speed the self-purification capacity of the Dnieper has been reduced and algal bloom encouraged.
United Kingdom A new UK award scheme-the Pollution Abatement Technology Award 1983- is being sponsored by a charitable foundation, ERAS, and promoted by the Confederation of British Industry, the Department of the Environment and the Royal Society of Arts. Entries from either UK institutions, individuals or companies will be judged by the extent to which they achieve environmental benefits, are innovative, make economies or improve efficiency. 1983 award entries should be submitted before
Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 10, pp. 369-372, 1983 Printed in Great Britain
Metal-containing 'Granules' Potential Biological Indicators of Pollution ? The existence of metal-containing granules in invertebrate tissues is now well known (Simkiss, K., 1976, Symp. Soc. exp. Biol., 30, 423 4A4; Coombs, T. L. & George, S. G., 1978, in Physiology and Behaviour of Marine Organisms (D. S. McLusky & A. J. Berry, eds.), pp. 179-187, Pergamon Press, Oxford; Brown, B. E., 1982, Biol. Rev., 57, 621-667). The ability to store metals in this way appears to be common to all the major invertebrate phyla, with the prime sites for metal storage and detoxication in crustacea, molluscs and insects, being organs with digestive, storage and excretory functions (e.g. hepatopancreas, midgut,
Mediterranean A Workshop on 'Assistance in Oil Pollution Combatting in the Mediterranean' was held by the Regional Oil Combatting Centre for the Mediterranean (ROCC) under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme at Manoel Island, Malta. Its objectives were to review ROCC's assistance during the past six years to the Mediterranean Coastal States, in order to establish concrete guidelines for the ROCC's Work Programme for 19841986. The Workshop provided an excellent opportunity for an exchange of views between representatives and experts, from which it appears that ROCC is entering a second phase of development in which the Centre will be expected to promote more efficient procedures of assistance in this region and to give greater support to many recent national initiatives. A Works Programme for 1984-1986 will be submitted to the next extraordinary meeting of the Contracting Parties of the Barcelona Convention in Spring 1984.
0023-326X/83 $3.00 + 0.(30 f~) 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd.
digestive gland, Malpighian tubules and kidney). Recently authors (Doyle, L. J. etal., 1978, Science, 199, 1431-1433; Carmichael, N. G. et al., 1979, J. Fish. Res. Bd Can., 39, 1149-1155) have suggested that metal-containing granules in certain species may be used as biological indicators of polluted habitats; this view being reinforced by observations that the form and abundance of granules may be positively correlated with the level of metal in the environment (Icely, J. D. & Nott, J. A., 1980, Mar. Biol., 57, 193-199). The purpose of this review is to consider these suggestions in the light of the extensive literature on granule form, content and function. Three major granule types have been identified to date, based on their composition. These are (i) copper-containing granules which generally also contain sulphur and perhaps traces of calcium, (ii) calcium-containing granules, which 369
Round-the-World News
31 October to Timothy Cantell, RSA, John Adam Street, Adelphi, London WC2N 6EZ, UK.
Yugoslavia
France
The master of the Liberian tanker Seaborne has been accused by the Yugoslav authorities of polluting the sea near the Adriatic coastal resort of Sutomore by discharging tank washings which created a 2.6 km 2 slick of oil. The vessel's master has denied responsibility for the incident but the Yugoslav authorities are testing oil samples taken from the slick and will be submitting a claim against the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund seeking compensation for clean-up costs and damage caused by the oil discharge.
A French potash firm is defying a court ruling by continuing to dump waste salt into the Rhine at more than double the recommended rate. A Strasbourg court decided that Alsatian Potash Mines had been breaking international law for three years, after a lengthy legal battle between the Government-owned company and ten Dutch towns affected by the salt further down the Rhine. But the firm, which is dumping chloride at the rate of 130 kg s- i into the river, compared to 60 kg s-1 recommended by an international commission, has assured its 5800 workers that it will not cut back on production and now plans to take its case further.
USSR A plan has been produced to initiate a major clean-up of the Ukranian Dnieper River basin, including phosphorus removal from industrial effluents, the modernization of 1300 industrial wastewater treatment plants, and reduction of farming effluents. The construction of a new dam upstream of Kiev has exacerbated problems downstream, for as a result of a lower river current speed the self-purification capacity of the Dnieper has been reduced and algal bloom encouraged.
United Kingdom A new UK award scheme-the Pollution Abatement Technology Award 1983- is being sponsored by a charitable foundation, ERAS, and promoted by the Confederation of British Industry, the Department of the Environment and the Royal Society of Arts. Entries from either UK institutions, individuals or companies will be judged by the extent to which they achieve environmental benefits, are innovative, make economies or improve efficiency. 1983 award entries should be submitted before
Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 10, pp. 369-372, 1983 Printed in Great Britain
Metal-containing 'Granules' Potential Biological Indicators of Pollution ? The existence of metal-containing granules in invertebrate tissues is now well known (Simkiss, K., 1976, Symp. Soc. exp. Biol., 30, 423 4A4; Coombs, T. L. & George, S. G., 1978, in Physiology and Behaviour of Marine Organisms (D. S. McLusky & A. J. Berry, eds.), pp. 179-187, Pergamon Press, Oxford; Brown, B. E., 1982, Biol. Rev., 57, 621-667). The ability to store metals in this way appears to be common to all the major invertebrate phyla, with the prime sites for metal storage and detoxication in crustacea, molluscs and insects, being organs with digestive, storage and excretory functions (e.g. hepatopancreas, midgut,
Mediterranean A Workshop on 'Assistance in Oil Pollution Combatting in the Mediterranean' was held by the Regional Oil Combatting Centre for the Mediterranean (ROCC) under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme at Manoel Island, Malta. Its objectives were to review ROCC's assistance during the past six years to the Mediterranean Coastal States, in order to establish concrete guidelines for the ROCC's Work Programme for 19841986. The Workshop provided an excellent opportunity for an exchange of views between representatives and experts, from which it appears that ROCC is entering a second phase of development in which the Centre will be expected to promote more efficient procedures of assistance in this region and to give greater support to many recent national initiatives. A Works Programme for 1984-1986 will be submitted to the next extraordinary meeting of the Contracting Parties of the Barcelona Convention in Spring 1984.
0023-326X/83 $3.00 + 0.(30 f~) 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd.
digestive gland, Malpighian tubules and kidney). Recently authors (Doyle, L. J. etal., 1978, Science, 199, 1431-1433; Carmichael, N. G. et al., 1979, J. Fish. Res. Bd Can., 39, 1149-1155) have suggested that metal-containing granules in certain species may be used as biological indicators of polluted habitats; this view being reinforced by observations that the form and abundance of granules may be positively correlated with the level of metal in the environment (Icely, J. D. & Nott, J. A., 1980, Mar. Biol., 57, 193-199). The purpose of this review is to consider these suggestions in the light of the extensive literature on granule form, content and function. Three major granule types have been identified to date, based on their composition. These are (i) copper-containing granules which generally also contain sulphur and perhaps traces of calcium, (ii) calcium-containing granules, which 369